Samsung Corby (Samsung Genio / Samsung S3650)

Discontinued 14th September 2009, updated 27th September
2009

Many manufacturers these days like to give their
phones a pet name as well as a model number, and Samsung are no
exception. But with a couple of recent handsets, it appears that
either Samsung are having a funny turn or perhaps someone is up
to mischief.

First there was the Samsung
Preston S5600 and now there is the Samsung Corby S3650.
Now, imagine that you are in a marketing department and you hit
on the idea of naming your handsets after European towns and cities.
You'd think that would be easy, as there must be hundreds of attractive
places to choose from. Well, somehow Samsung ended up naming the
S5600 after the British town of Preston, which can be pretty
grim.. but at the time, we assumed that perhaps it was some
other Preston.

But
now, the S3650 turns up bearing the name "Corby", apparently
named after another pretty
grim British town. They could have called them something like
"Venice" or "Prague".. but no. Unsurprisingly
then, the "Preston" is generally called the S5600 in the
UK, and we somehow doubt that the Corby name will stick either.

Before we offend any more of our readers, perhaps
it is time to look at the phone itself. The S3650 is designed to
be a low cost and fun touchscreen phone, retailing for between €160
to €200 SIM-free across Europe. For this, you get a fairly
large 2.8" 240 x 320 pixel display, a 2 megapixel camera, microSD
expandable memory, FM radio and a multimedia player.

Samsung
say that the Corby integrates with social networking sites such
as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr via a set of "widgets",
however the S3650 is a GSM-only device, so it doesn't support 3G
(or WiFi) which means that uploads and downloads will be quite slow.

The Corby S3650 comes with Samsung's TouchWiz interface,
but on this occasion it has been modified to give a simpler
and more "cartoony" feel. The fun continues with the interchangeable
back covers (or "fashion jackets") which allow the handset
to be customised to the owner's taste.

Despite the large screen, the S3650 is quite lightweight
at just 93 grams. Talktime is not specified, although the 960 mAh
battery should provide a GSM-only device like this with enough power
to be useful.

Normally we don't like touchscreen phones that lack
high-speed data, but the lightweight and inexpensive S3650 certainly
has its charms. It is available in some regions to buy now, with
other European countries following in the next month or so.

Update:
in the UK the "Corby" range will be sold as "Genio"
instead. Samsung have also announced the Corby
PRO and Corby
TXT devices in this range.